Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Monday December 20, 1999 @12:48PM
from the its-like-a-freakin-yo-yo dept.

textral writes "The Adrenaline Vault is running an article about Intel announcing the new jewel in its crown, the 800mhz PC, again foisting the 'fastest processor on the market' belt away from AMD's 750mhz Athlon. " Its fun watching the big boys do battle over silly little things like megahertz. Every time they up the ante, my poor P2 feels slower and slower. Jerks.

And of course any new processor from either Intel or AMD is going to be sucking up more electrical power than the last one. Is it really responsible to keep pushing people toward higher and higher power consumption just to get some trivial extra speed that isn't even apparent (i.e. most applications stopped seeming faster around 133MHz, games and rendering packages excepted). Look at 3dfx's recent announcements. Their next generation graphics card uses so much wattage that it needs to be hooked to a hard drive power connector because the power on the bus isn't enough. And the generation after that needs to plug directly into the wall (no joke; this was mentioned in recent a 3dfx press release). This is beyond stupid.

Whatever you may wish to believe, the Athlon is a better chip at any clock speed than Intel's PIII. I, for one, have made a point to be Intel free as much as I can. All 3 PC's that I own are AMD powered. If I could afford to, I would go with something with more raw horsepower, but for the $69 I spent on my K6-2 400, I don't really care that Intel just released a chip that costs over $850. Similarly, I wouldn't drop $700 on an Athlon. Soon, those prices will fall, and I am content with trailing edge technology. In a few months, I'll be sitting playing with a quad Athlon system that I'll put together for less than the cost of a single PIII system today. No, there is no pissing contest. Intel couldn't piss their way out of a wet paper sack. AMD can, Compaq's alpha could, and any number of other fine chips out there could, but piss on Intel.

You do realize any piece of software can generate a completely Unique number in any number of ways and do the same things with it as any hardware number, right?

Anything in software can be erased (repeatedly wipe-erased, if you really want to be sure) by the user, after which it is inaccessible to crackers because it simply no longer exists. This is not the case with an embedded chip ID.

This implies a certain lack of worth for said feature, but it also implies complete harmlessness for those with even the vaguest clue.

Someone who is unclear on the concept that software is fundamentally different from hardware is in a remarkably poor position to lecture people about their cluefulness level. /.

AMD do have a 1GHz Athlon on the market - it's in the Kryotech SuperG machine, retailing at $2200 I think and available now.

Since Kryotech stuck with AMD through the leaner periods until now, it's nice to see their cooling technology get a worthy processor.

Of course, the general media haven't caught up to this, which is odd given that there was a howling crowd of posters in one of the talkbacks to an article on ZDNet looking at the race to 1GHz all wondering why the Kryotech machines aren't being more widely publicized. No wonder I keep bumping into conspiracy theories about Intel 'warning off' OEMs and PC builders...:-)

Has been available for Linux for some time now. Meanwhile, Microsoft has had USB support for NT 4.0, but has been sitting on it to encourage the upgrade to NT 5.0. Right! That's a winner...

High Speed networking

??? AFAIK, Linux supports any networking you have drivers for.

good multi proc support

Linux's SMP works very well on some things, poorer on others. Just like NT. The Mindcraft problem was the single-threaded TCP/IP stack, which has been fixed in 2.3. Next...

standard application base

That old thing? Please. There are thousands of POSIX applications that do everything I want to. (NT cannot run many of them, BTW.) The only thing I lack on native Linux is a lot of games, and Windows 2000 doesn't score too well in the compatability department there...

good web server performance

Which explains why Apache has twice the installed base of IIS, and IIS is dropping...

stability improvements

I'd prefer an OS that was stable to begin with...

You're free to use Windows 2000, but me, I'll stick with Linux any day.

Uh..Exactly...well...minus the nerd boy thing. The Althlon will run the EXACT same code as the Intels. So you can compare the same App! not just bench a certain task....And unfortunately (or fortunately if you are a hard core gamer) this is what is currently driving the market. You think all us Techno wenies are driving the market? Well...not really. If you only run freeware stuff that comes with source and you want to port all that code to an Alpha that's fine....but for I would guess 70% of the retail customers out there this is not the case....

i'm running a p2-350 at 467mhz(3.5x133mhz) w/ 256mb of pc133 SDRAM. it's doing what i need it to do.. I get about 1.5mil keys/sec in CSC, and about 8hrs per work unit in SETI@Home. All this hype surrounding these 600, 700, and 800mhz processors, and I couldn't care less. My P2 does just fine.:)

Okay....let's goto sharky's site...the same site that was hashed all over the net when they posted their first Athlon reviews that said the Athlon wasn't faster clock for clock with the PIII when there was half a dozen sites that said that it was...Hrm.....Which would you believe?

Okay....let's goto sharky's site...the same site that was hashed all over the net when they posted their first Athlon reviews that said the Athlon wasn't faster clock for clock with the PIII when there was half a dozen sites that said that it was...Hrm.....Which would you believe? Also, what are you gonna put that brand spanking new PIII in?

The last important thing to happen in the chip market was AMD debuting the Athlon. It was a new chip, not an echo of a past one. New technology, not new numbers, finally allowed AMD to leap over Intel.

When will AMD go dual? When will Intel get RAMBUS and the i820 working right? When will AMD get a full 200MHz bus with 200MHz SDRAM? When will Intel try and streamline a new form factor motherboard?

AMD and Intel aren't innovating right now. They're just focused on a race for the first to break the GHz barrier. Until they pass it, computer users will only be getting "bigger," rather than "better."

Uhh, cryotech already has the Athlon running at 1000. Just because it is cooled, doesn't mean that it is not "officialy" at that speed. If that were the case, may Cray machines were "unoficially" overclocked from the factory =)

The reason P-III's are compatible with P-II motherboards is because there are hardly any differences between the two chips. It's really just a bunch of misleading marketing hype. People see the P-III name and assume that the difference is as radical as the difference between the Pentium and the P-II. In actuality, the technology difference between the P-III and the P-II is more similar to the difference between the Pentium and the Pentium MMX. And the speed difference of similarly clocked chips is even less.

800 Mhz Athlons are already out [tech-report.com]. I'm not familiar with the exact details but suffice to say that the K7 was designed to scale much more easily in clock speed than Intel's parts. Coupled with the good luck AMD is having with yields it looks like Intel is going to be playing catchup for the foreseeable future.

And don't forget that and the same clockspeed Athlon delivers up to 40% more floating point power, making this the world's finest Quake II engine. Then there are the 3D now instructions.:-)

I work for an investment bank whose traders won't be happy with 1GHz; faster math processing = faster trading = more profit.

Are they really crunching numbers with all those cycles or are they making trades? In my limited experience with investment bankers, they only want the cycles so they are "cutting edge" and really don't have apps that require extremely fast processors (e.g. Biff has a 1GHz PC and so does Chad, where is mine?)

I draw a line between my various computers. Each one serves a purpose. I do most of my writing on an an IBM PS/2 Model 30. That's an 8086 with 640K of RAM and a 20MB hard drive.

God I love that IBM hardware. That PS/2 keyboard is my favorite. I have a whole Microchannel 486 server to set up with Linux one day. IBM sure can build solid stuff! Even though they last longer than they should in the computer industry.

now this is just bunk, i've already USED a 900MHz kryotech AMD, so what's with all this stuff about 800MHz computers? and i'm not "privy" to any computers that other people AREN'T, the computer was at a local computer store, along with flyers (pertaining to the 800 and 900MHz kryotech systems) for people interested in purchasing.

I am curious to what other people think on getting the fastest processor available at any given moment. The thing is, they (Intel/AMD/etc) seem to be going ahead full speed, but the rest of the industry is quite away behind in terms of actually utilizing the speed. When is it ever the best time to buy the newest and fastest?

Over at Ace's Hardware [aceshardware.com], they've got a news item about AMD's forthcoming announcement of an 800 MHz Athlon, supposedly today as well. And (AFAIK) unlike Intel, AMD's supposed to be able to be shipping them in volume very soon. Intel's still got volume problems, especially with the 800 MHz chip.

Most people can not name another chip maker other than Intel. Market share is made by marketing in this case. Intel=Kleenix

Bull... If that where the case then no one would buy AMD at all. Go look on those shopping channels. They cater to non-techies and they usually sell both AMD systems and Intel systems. They just don't tell you it's another companies processor, cause they don't care.

I thinks they both create good chipsets but this little battle royale has reaped benefits for consumers. If Intel had it their way the P2 would just be introduced. What if M$ had a competitor like AMD to Intel. Oh well, could it be linux... lets hope so.

It just doesn't matter to most people, at least practically-speaking. As people pointed out in a recent discussion, even though it doesn't matter, people will still buy the hottest chip around. Very much like how people buy the greatest SUVs, the fastest Porches, etc.

Agreed, but some people do need to crunch serious numbers, and it's good if you're running large servers and suchlike. But if you're just running Office and reading email, 800mhz isn't going to help you much. However, 800mhz CPUs will drive down the price of a 500mhz {insert prefered CPU here} chip, so overall everyone (performance freaks and "normal" people) wins.

But consider that VW does well with their "0-60? Yes." advertisments. How long will it be until a processor company pops up with a similar ad campaign? I give it 12-18 months.

Celerons already have that reputation among geeks, though it's not advertised as such (in fact, I don't remember ever seeing an ad for celerons (or athlons!), just P3s). I know a coupla people running dual overclocked celerons that they got fairly cheap. However, I detest Intel and their bloated architechture, so I would probably get a K6-3 or an Athlon anyway . Yes, same bloated architechure, but at least AMD didn't create it. And from what I've heard the Athlon internals are Alpha-like, which is cool (it would also help explain the performance!).

The Pentium III processor sets a new baseline for high-performance business desktop computing, and is also available for entry-level workstations and servers. And now, the new mobile Pentium III processor enables greater productivity on the go, at speeds of up to 500 MHz.

Right here, straight from the source. 500MHz is the max that a PIII will do. The rest must be overclocked. I hope that those of you who bought >500MHz chips don't melt 'em.

256K running at full speed is only with coppermine.:o) They ARE the same core logic. Just a couple parts thrown in. There's no difference in the internal ogice of registers or buffers (aside from the cache thing).....so Still that much different?? I think not!

From the desk of : What's the deal anyhow, the market is pushing bigger faster on a monthly basis. When most of the moronic fools on this planet will never do more than type out a letter on their computer. This is a frikkin' Wintel conspiracy. Those dumbasses are reeling people into a massive scam...what's the system requirements for WinBlows 2000? 128Mb Ram P3-333...give me a break! My P150 (no MMX!) 64 Mb 72pin SD RAM running RH6.1 and Blackbox outperforms their ass....I think I could vomit...but *sigh* 800Mhz...Quake III would run sooooooo smooth;-) Intel , Microsoft CRAP.... AMD -- I love you guys Cheers

Let's check out the www.thechipmerchant.com...Hmm, no 750Mhz PIII there, but the Athlon 750Mhz is there. Well it must have been a fluke, let's look at pricewatch.com. Gee, there isn't even a search category for PIII 750, plenty of Athlon 750's though. You're about as likely to find a PIII 750 (or 800) as Boss Hog is likely to turn down a pork chop. Intel can take the crown when they aren't selling vaporware.

For instance, it sometimes happens that my office box (a PII/400) has a load average > 3 for weeks continuously, running compute-intensive jobs. Replacing its SE440BX with something SMP-capable, and using two processors could actually help as a lot of the work is actually quite parallelizable. If the kernel weren't an archaic kernel altered by others in ways about which I have minimal information, it might actually be worth it to save time and sanity...

Okay....but kinda hard to compare an Alpha to a Intel or AMD dirrectly because they don't use the x86 instruction set! Apples to apples is why it's a big comparison....And the really great thing is that the only that really differs between the two computing platforms is the motherboard and said processor. I guess you can argue RAM now with RAMBUS.....but that's another sad story.

An acquaintance and I just did a POV-ray scene test. My PII/333 against his PIII/500. His was 15 minutes shorter than my 11 hours 47 minutes. (He also such off the error message stream regarding degenerate triangles which may account for all the diffrence.) It's De Buss, Boss, De Buss. I can't wait to see what benchmark is created to make 750 and 800MHz CPUs look worth buying when installed on 75-100MHz busses. Will it be how long it takes to ten thousand iterations of the routine that fits entirely in the on-board cache? Is there any other that could make it look worth buying?

They used an i820 mobo and RDRAM for the P3, but just normal 100MHz SDRAM for the K7. I'd like to see a result from a benchmark that didn't need much memory bandwidth. Also, the 133MHz bus of the fastest P3 will help it a lot when all it has to do is stuff bytes into an accelerator card.It might be that you can't buy RDRAM K7 mobos, in which case AMD needs to get some made.#define X(x,y) x##y

We're stuck with old instructions that no one use, which in turns slows down the CPU. We need ludicrous GHz speeds to match CPUs with half and even the third of the MHz speed (PIII/K7.vs. Alpha anyone? Or even easier to compare, PIII/K7.vs. G4 Altivec core anyone?). Still, who needs all that number-crunching speed? Well that [TWD] tag suggest some clan game playing, therefore I need all that speed, especially for Q3, and to continue checking keys for d.net and to hope to get that 2k euros prize after CSC finishes.:) Besides that, I wouldn't need anything better than a i386, linux, and an old (read: quick) word processor ! (Oops I forgot XMMS.. ok let's say a P90...)

Tom's Hardware recently ran benchmarks of Intel's chipsets [tomshardware.com]. What I got from this (which may be wildly inaccurate:) is that the i820 (which is probably what you'll get if you buy a P3) is in many cases no better than the 440BX. In order to get a real performance boost, you'll need the i840, which Intel isn't yet releasing in mass quantities, and they're marketing it as a workstation (not desktop) chipset. hmm.

anyway, I've got a P2-350 and don't plan on upgrading anytime soon (and it'll probably be an AMD when I do.:)

The fact is that the high end processors of today will be next week's surplus. Whether this translates into better affordable PC's in the future is another question, but it seems like it can't hurt.

In the end, this has nothing to do with what you or I buy, but it has everything to do with the industry and what seems like the flagging domminance of Intel. People like to buy from the manufacturer that makes the fastest chips. Even if they can't afford top of the line.

>This is like cars that do 0-60 in 2.4 >milliseconds and can go up to 250mph.

No, it's not like that at all. Cars that can go 250MPh (show me one) are irrelevant because there is no speed limit that high. Unless I've missed something, there is no speed limit on processors.

>It just doesn't matter to most people, at least >practically-speaking

To the unwashed masses, it doesn't matter; but that's not who the chipmakers are targetting in their first releases. I work for an investment bank whose traders won't be happy with 1GHz; faster math processing = faster trading = more profit.

Also, as someone else pointed out: how important was the PII to the "average person" when it first came out? Just as important as this speed bump, I'd say. Newer, faster technology at the top pushes prices down at the bottom and all the way up. When an even newer, faster technology comes out your "average joe" won't buy anything less than n-1 tier technology.

AMD hasn't announced an 800MHz chip yet. The fastest they've announced is 750MHz, and those are quite easy to find. The Register was saying last week that actual systems with the 800MHz PIII won't be available until *March*. They're not shipping them in volume today, just sampling them to top-tier manufacturers. So if you ask me, they're still behind AMD.

From everything I've heard (two places IIRC) Tom's Hardware and Gamespot a PIII with the 820 mobo and RDRAM actually runs faster than an equivalently clocked Athlon. Now, yes it is running a different memory, but as far as I know, Athlon doesn't support that memory (at least right now.) And the memory is VERY expensive (~$700-$1000 for 128MB), but if you are going for the FASTEST possible at this moment, I think it goes to INTEL. Another slight hit towards Athlon is that it isn't stable in all configurations. (according to gamespot ) Now I have to say that for some odd reason I feel biased towards Intel even though they are the giant. Maybe it's because AMD has underperformed in the past. However, I will say that I'm happy AMD came out with their Athlon. Competition can only be good, and if they can take the crown, it will mean that I can buy an even faster processor. I don't have any problem with that.

Sorry, it seems that my links didn't work correctly so I'm reposting From everything I've heard (two places IIRC) Tom's Hardware [tomshardware.com] and Gamespot [gamespot.com] a PIII with the 820 mobo and RDRAM actually runs faster than an equivalently clocked Athlon. Now, yes it is running a different memory, but as far as I know, Athlon doesn't support that memory (at least right now.) And the memory is VERY expensive (~$700-$1000 for 128MB), but if you are going for the FASTEST possible at this moment, I think it goes to INTEL. Another slight hit towards Athlon is that it isn't stable in all configurations. (according to gamespot [gamespot.com]) Now I have to say that for some odd reason I feel biased towards Intel even though they are the giant. Maybe it's because AMD has underperformed in the past. However, I will say that I'm happy AMD came out with their Athlon. Competition can only be good, and if they can take the crown, it will mean that I can buy an even faster processor. I don't have any problem with that.

Another link that I just found:Gamespot [gamespot.com] If you look about midway down forThe Coppermine/RDRAM/820 combination clearly outpaces other solutions, including the Athlon 700. But the performance crown lies much more uneasily on this system's head. AMD has just announced the 750MHz Athlon, which is built using a 0.18 micron semiconductor process, similar to that used for Coppermine. This states that Intel is faster, although not by much. I doubt, however, that it can be considered faster because of a mere 33MHz, so my feeling is that the overall package of a PIII system is better than the Athlon. (The CPU may not be any better, but once you plug it into something, it starts getting better.) Note also, the cost of increasing to RDRAM and the 820 chipset isn't very cheap, but it does seem faster.

All Athlons 700 Mhz and below use.5 multiplier for the L2 cache with respect to CPU speed. The 750 Mhz part (and 800) runs with a.4 multiplier. This means that L2 cache of a 750 runs at 300 Mhz, a significant reduction from 350 Mhz L2 cache of the 700 Mhz. Intel is now including 256KB of cache on die with the P3's which means that L2 cache gets that same boost in Mhz as the processor. The performance lead the athlon's held over earlier P3's (500-600 Mhz range) is evaporating. Still though, sometime early next year AMD will add L2 on die, which should give it a decent boost.

Sharky's benchmarks are most likely valid--just remember, the test systems weren't necessarily a valid view of what's available. The athlon system could actually be bought, while the pIII 800 isn't available. Has anyone tried to buy any 128MB PC800 RDRAM? I haven't had any luck, and even if I could, I know it would break the bank. Basically, yes, the PIII 800 is faster than an athlon 750, but it isn't actually available to the public. Not to mention the price premium for a very slightly faster rig is extreme. (well over a thousand dollars)

As these companies battle for the tittle of speed Like greek goddess fighting over a certain apple, I wonder how much is fundamentally true about who deserves it. The great problem is their are no accredited independent testing faclities to verify these claims. Each company touts the results of what it's lab said were the results. Without independant accredited testing you are at the mercy of the companies PR machine and how they say their product(s) is the best. Not that companies would ever lie to us about their product(s).

It does - check Sharkyextreme.com [sharkyextreme.com] - they just did a roundup on three new Intel processors, and both the 800/100 and the 800/133 outperformed the Athlon 750 in nearly all benchmarks... even the P3 733/133 outperformed the Athlon 750 in some tests.

Seems like everyone is *against* higher clockrates. Am I really the only one here who thinks faster is better? I want a system that can run Q3A with full details at 60fps. I want a system that can run the latest bloatware fast. I don't want to have to wait all day to encode MP3s, or spend five minutes waiting for that damn Java applet to load. I want a fast PC, preferably sooner than later.

I would never do something as stupid as buing the latest and most expensive CPU. I can't afford an Athlon 800, but when faster models come out, the price of slower models comes down - JUST HOW IS THAT A BAD THING?

Whether your car does 0-60 in 2 seconds or 20, it still accelerates quickly enough to enter the interstate at a reasonable speed. In 10 years, the rate at which your car currently accelerates will still be sufficient. That's because Micro$soft doesn't build the roads. If cars were like computers, then in 5 years, the entrance ramps would be no more than 1/10th of their current length. In other words, your car that blows everything off the road now would be the minimum required to safely get on the interstate.

Furthermore, whether or not you run Linux is immaterial. There will always be new software that pushes the limits of current hardware, and as hardware advances, so will the software. Just because you don't agree with Micro$oft's philosophy that it suddenly takes a P-III 800 with 256 MB RAM for your son to write a book report doesn't mean that there won't be something you want to do that requires faster hardware. Whether it is voice recognition, 3D animation, home automation, or AI, something will come out that will make you need faster hardware. And if you don't believe me, look at your current software and OS and tell me you would just as soon run it on a 4MB 486SX/25Mhz.

I wonder if, upon advertising it appropriately, Intel could have Celeron capture that market?

They probably could, but I doubt they want to. All the geeks I know who drool over celerons do so because, overclocked, they run about as reliably as gravity...so they get some incredible benchmarks on them. The celeron 300 can be easily and safely OC'd to somethng like 550Mhz. But I really don't see Intel advertising chips along these lines, since it would probably detract from higher-end chip sales.

Besides, all the people who are even vaguely qualified to OC their system are pretty much guaranteed to know about celerons...

The latest technology leap in HDD's has been ATA-66, which realistically only pushes 20MB/s which is only marginally faster than a $30 100MB ethernet card.

Now with gigabit ethernet cards, although they are expensive, are fast enough to easily saturate your system bus. Once we finally get away from slow hard drives and buses, we can really see improvements in overall end-user-apparent speed.

Anyone who has attempted to play Wheel of Time knows what I mean:) I've never waited that long for a level to load, ever... and it takes away from the game.

I'll keep my hand up, thank you very much! The K6 was an excellent processor that had a crappy FPU, that's all. I've been a fan of AMD since the 386 days, and I'll back them until they break Intel's balls!!

Don't bash new hardware, it's an engineering marvel that intel can get their ppro core (essentialy the same as p3) which came out years ago, to run at 800 Mhz. The Athlon is a great chip and it's amazing that it can run x86 crap instructions at 1Ghz. These feats aren't easy.

Would you rather slow progress down so you and I can catch up? (my p200-mmx isn't the blazing machine it was when I got it)

Maybe we should petition Intel to slow down a bit. They have plenty of money, we don't need faster computers.

First, the Processor ID in PIII's can be turned off. TURN THE GODDAMN THING OFF if you don't like it.

Yes, and when they made the announcement that you could turn it off, they said the only way to turn it back on was through rebooting. The next week someone had figured out how to turn it on in software without rebooting. Real secure.

Too many ignorant people (conspiracy theorists, perhaps?) make dumb statements like the above.

And what exactly are YOUR credentials? No offense here, but it doesn't take an idiot to make the connection between UIDs that a browser can identify and send to a company and cookies. Honestly cookies are bad enough, but adding a unique identifier to them such that you personally are easily identifiable without going through your ISP is worse.

Nah It's not my ide bus, I use U2W SCSI... The only IDE device I have is an internal zip drive, which i hardly use since i got a cd-r... Believe me, my bottleneck is bandwidth. (I'm in the multimedia content prod. area) I use a Dual PII-400 256Mb PC100 RAM... With ~23GB Ultra-Wide SCSI Drives (minus the CD-R/ROM's, but they're on a seperate SCSI controller) One client wanted me to ftp a ~700mb movie to their site. All fine and dandy for them, on their nice t3. but me, i still had a 28.8k at the time (And it was on my personal Line, lol). SO i bought a CD-R and mailed it to them. Got there MUCH faster. (USPS is good for something)

I do agree on the bus speed points you make. intel's i820 or AMD's 200Mhz is a start, if they could ever start... and SCSI is still too expensive for most people. We need to take the NASA route, "faster and cheaper."

Speaking of load times... anyone remember installing Wing Commander 2 from diskette? what was all THAT wait-time about?

I find it ironic that you give so much credit to Intel for maintaining backward compatibility. AMD has kept socket 7 alive for over a year since Intel abandoned it in favor of slot one and later socket 370. The also kept performance competitive enough that I find it hard to believe that Intel only left socket 7 for technical reasons. The big buzz about Intel's slot one when it came out was that no other chip company was going to be able to make a cpu that could function in it.

Also, Intel has created socket 370, if you got one of the motherboards supporting socket 370 it looks like you are going to be out of luck when the new P3s come out in socket form, because Intel decided to change a few pins around.

The next step up in speed is great since it makes the lower end processors cheaper but why the hell are most of you whning? AMD is better, no Intel is better. Blah blah blah. I'd like to see either company come out with a system architecture that was wholly faster than the previous one. A few frames in Quake or a minute faster on a scene rendering in 3DS isn't going to impress me much. If I saw a doubling of the framerate for Quake I would be much impressed. I read somewhere AMD might be planning a 64bit x86 processor, doing the AltiVec thang and running 32bit code on a 128bit core. Four 32bit instructions get run on a single clock which speeds things up a good deal. AMD just needs to givure out how to speed up the rest of the system, DDRRAM is one step. So is a 133mhz PCI bus. Maybe x86 will stick around a little bit longer...

How can a chip you cannot buy anywhere be considered the fastest chip available? In fact, has anyone tried to purchase a 733 PIII from their local computer dealer? I've asked around town and no one has them. Not a one. But, all the same dealers I spoke with had 750 Athlon's in stock. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if AMD announces an 800MHz sometime in January. Mark my words.

Yep. But the barely computer literate PHB's and AOL users will see it and make analogies with cars 'horsepower etc... It's "got more MHz, Elmer, it must be faster!!!" The public is, in general, getting more techno-savvy. However, as this proves, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. And by the time your PHB's actually know what a superscalar pipeline is, we'll be getting into some seriously weird new stuff...

As you have read, AMD have released for review a 800 MHz Athlon to some hardware sites (tech-report.com and Anandtech, for example).

What makes these news even more irrelevant is that the big hardware guys (Dell, Gateway) are not able to get PIII 750 MHz from Intel, let alone this new 800 MHz model! I think Intel is playing the good-ol' FUD card.

And if you don't believe me, look at your current software and OS and tell me you would just as soon run it on a 4MB 486SX/25Mhz.

I draw a line between my various computers. Each one serves a purpose. I do most of my writing on an an IBM PS/2 Model 30. That's an 8086 with 640K of RAM and a 20MB hard drive.

Why? Because it works.

But I'm writing this now on a 350mHz G3 with 190MB of RAM and 8MB of VRAM. Why? Because I like to play Quake on this machine.

I use most of my systems as appliances. They do a few things, and that's all that I want them to do. And I strongly believe that this is a trend that more and more people will follow. But they don't want multiple computers as they think of them now, but devices. (With, as discussed today [slashdot.org], Be as the OS.)

So, yes, in that sense, I fully believe that there will continue to be a use for less-than-stellar processors, for the VW bug of processors. (Though I maintain that some people will knowingly purchase traditional desktops with less souped-up processors.) Whether Celeron or something else, there will be room for them in a mass-market sense.

While U2W SCSI is an excellent start, it's not that much faster than the latest EIDE drives. It's the fundamental 'spinning of the disks too slow' problem.

However, if you are still using a 28.8 modem, don't complain about how bandwidth is lacking:)That's equivalent to trying to suck an orange dry with a straw.

If cable or ADSL is available in your area, jump all over it. There are startup discounts galore and its well worth it. I've been on cable for almost a year now and I can never go back. I've seen 370K/s (yes.37 MB/s) on mine and 700 MB isn't that big at those speeds.

Floppy installs are the worst. At my old work, one of my co-workers actually installed win95 off floppies, something like 80 disks? Why? I don't know...

Hardly a fair comparrison, when the Pentium rigs are using RDRAM instead of PC100 SDRAM(Athalons). At $1000/128M simm. Check the specs and comments by the authors at sharkey.. anandtech.com has a different set of comparrison systems that put the two systems neck and neck.

Besides, for $1000 you could get a 1GHz kryo cooled system and put a big gap between the Athalon and Pentium systems.

The Intel Chip might have a higher MHz rating, but the fastest Athlon Chip will still cream it, especially in Floating Point perfromance. MHz for MHz, the Athlons are about 15%-20% faster than an Intel. I wish that they would hurry up with SMP Athlon boards. I am going to have to build a computing cluster soon, and I would LOVE to make it out of Dual Athlon Boards, but it appears that SMP Athlon Boards won't be out until Q2 or Q3 2000.:-(

For the near future at least, Alphas are still sitting on top of the performance heap. With API's (www.alpha-processor.com) new UP1000 AMD Irongate based motherboard (uses the same chipset as all Athlon boards), you can get a >40 SpecINT, >60 SpecFP computer for under $5000 (www.dcginc.com) . Nothing on the market is this fast.

For the price, Athlons and PIII's are great, but for serious number crunching, Alphas are the way to go.

You just give two CPU's the exact same tasks to perform and measure the amount of time it takes... Therefore, the Alpha's faster...

If you still want to say otherwise, i'd venture to say that both the K7 and P6 (especially the K6 though) are not really executing x86 instructions anyhow... They've got microcode that converts x86 instructions to their native instructions, because x86 was just too cumbersome...

Regardless, though... It's not at all hard to compare an Alpha to a Pentium...

You may wonder why there is such a race to crank up the clock rate on processors. The reason is that most consumers do not understand all the intricacies of what processor is faster, but can understand that 800mhz > 700mhz.

People who read Slashdot know that clock rates are only directly comparable between identical processors. We know that different architectures have different performance at the same clock rate. The vast majority of people that purchase processors these days don't know that. Most people don't understand why (if they are even aware) a PowerPC, SPARC, or Athlon has better real-world performance than a Pentium at the same clock rate.

Most people look at the "megahertz" and use that as the sole comparison of the processors performance even when they don't understand what that number actually means.

For this reason, the mantra at processor companies is "Megahertz At All Costs"

An air-cooled 1GHz Alpha 21264 has already been publically demonstrated (perhaps at Comdex, I forget). If you like the floating-point performance of the Athlon vs. PIII check out the Alpha benchmarks. On fp, Alphas crush* all-comers. At a price. (*)Ok, maybe not some IBMS;^)

While this may be true of the K6-2 3DNow! instruction set, the Athlon introduced some more 3DNow! instructions. The long and the short of is that Athlon 3DNow! and SSE are basically equivalent in terms of performance.

I believe that neither of these instruction sets are being rendered irrelevant due to lack of vendor support, the only other real issue.

When the Athlon was first released, Toms Hardware [tomshardware.com] did a very detailed write up on the architecture of the Athlon, and how it relates to the PIII.

You can find that article here [tomshardware.com]. To summarize, this advancement from Intel is basically irrelevant, as AMD could (probably) have 1GHz Athlons on the market already, the Athlon is designed to run at those kinds of speeds, and has a (in their opinion) dramatically superior architecture to the PIII.

Tom mentioned somewhere in the article that AMD would probably do to Intel what Intel had been doing to them for years, which was to one-up whatever speed they come out with. Watch for AMD to beat this by 50MHz or so pretty soon...

This is like cars that do 0-60 in 2.4 milliseconds and can go up to 250mph.

It just doesn't matter to most people, at least practically-speaking. As people pointed out in a recent discussion [slashdot.org], even though it doesn't matter, people will still buy the hottest chip around. Very much like how people buy the greatest SUVs, the fastest Porches, etc.

But consider that VW [vw.com] does well with their "0-60? Yes." advertisments [vw.com]. How long will it be until a processor company pops up with a similar ad campaign? I give it 12-18 months.

And I'll get one, too, because I don't need the latest, greatest hardware. 'Cuz I run Linux.:)

The real crown will be who busts 1GHZ. It will be interesting because both Intel and AMD are looking at making some serious headway in the design process and 1GHZ will be a landmark for years to come. Look for 1GHZ by early 2nd quarter if we keep up the pace we have been on. Alright show of hands, who 3 years ago with the release of the K6 actually thought AMD would be around this long and this competitive. You in the back with your hand up. Put it down, your lying! Just that much better for the consumer, btw P2 266 gonna upgrade to the Athlon once they release the new motherboards with 133MHZ bus and 4X AGP. =)

Stuff that matters to people with disposable income. All this is to me is another outrageously frivolous component. Hmm... that 500MHz not enough for you? Why not shell out about a grand on a new 800MHz processor. Get less than twice the performance for over three times the price. This is silly, and hardly all that newsworthy. See this [slashdot.org] for components that people who are not Internet billionaires can afford.----------------------------------------- -----------------

I want to hear about number crunching ability. I want Quake2/3/Unreal Tournament framerates. I want to see distributed.net and seti@home rates. I want to know how fast it can compile a 2.2.9 linux kernel.

Intel cannot afford to announce only the processors they can do volume on. If they did AMD would have a small lead in MHz number. Then manufacturers like Gateway and Dell would think about rolling out AMD based machines. By announcing fast chips, whether there is volume or not, Intel strings these guys along just enough (OK, co-marketing money helps too) to keep them from making any significant investment in Athlon machines. We have already seen Compaq and others introduce Athlon machines, if Intel cannot keep the MHz crown, AMD might get a foot hold with all the big US manufacturers. Intel would not want that.

The flip side is that AMD has probably been holding back a little bit to maximize revenue from each step up in MHz.

Microsoft already comes out with pretty decent innovations. Like it or not, microsoft has lots of competitors.. netscape, aol, real audio networks, all the unices out there.. There is alot more then the average linux zealot recognizes.

And if windows 2000 isn't technologically advanced as you would expect, then i can't imagine how linux could appear to be superior or even competitive..

So yeah, in this case the AMD and Intel is working for the customer.. as true for Microsoft and all its competitors.. the best man will win and has been winning. And as for choice, i choose Sun Solaris for my databases, NT for my file servers and linux for my development boxes. And now i get to choose which CPU i want to use. Too bad AMD hasn't released its Multiproc systems yet, or announced any developer chips for 64bit systems..